Category Archives: Meal Plan Mondays

Jumping back into this week seems so unreal. After being down with mastitis this week and a weekend of dreary weather I am ready for some sunshine! Thankfully the sun allowed its presence to be known today and now I can get on with why I am writing. 🙂

I am always trying to perfect the way I plan meals around here; being careful to allow flexibility and proper spacing so that I don’t end up with too much and throw good food out. Being off Monday and Thursday are perfect and make the difference in my attitude every week. I certainly love cooking but sometimes it seems like a chore rather than being enjoyable no matter how many times I try to convince myself of the benefits it has for my family. Making a weekly snack has been working a lot for us because then I am not scrambling at 3:30 trying to figure out what snack to throw out for the circus.

-Anyways.

Since the weather is growing colder and the leaves are starting to change I am darning my meal plan with themed nights again. My husband reminded me the other week how much he loved them so. 🙂 I typically rotate through a couple of themes each week and it also helps me to stay organized at best with things like soup, crock, takeout, casserole, nacho/burrito, breakfast and U pick night.

Over the weekend we watched a few episodes of Pioneer woman and my guys had stars next to meals they had to have me make this week.

Here’s what we’ve got coming up this week:

Breakfast

Overnight bread and egg bake

Basic oatmeal with fresh fruit

Vanilla donuts with chocolate peanut butter smoothies

cinnamon raisin french toast and sausage

Dinner

Crockpot chicken stuffing and beans with white pasta shells and basic brownies (My Kid Hero made the brownies on his own!)

I’ve been super lazy this summer with meal planning and I’m ready to get back to it. One thing that I’ve been trying to do more of is use what I have which can sometimes make meal planning difficult. I’m not really a fly by the seat of my pants girl so you can imagine what this doing to me. ha!

We have also recently added baby led weaning to our house. I will try to link things that I am trying with my princess pea’s meal time as well as time goes on.

In efforts to improve the way I plan and to update my current style and methods I re-purposed my old menu board which used to look like this.

(Old Photo from my earlier blogging days. I lined this with burlap )

And now looks like this. (I love Chalkboard)

One of the ways I save my family money is by finding things to make on my own. I stock up on staples like meat, seasonings, flours, sugars, milk and cheese. I can my own food, make my own bread, tortillas, condiments, yogurt, snacks, salad dressings (most of the time). I also freeze summer produce in bulk so that we can enjoy it throughout the winter months. This is exhausting and some may say why would someone ever do this much but in the end it’s worth the hassle, saves us a ton of money and I know what my family is eating. I feed my family with 300 dollars monthly/(150 dollar bi-weekly) including meat, Costco and produce.

When I meal plan, I think about what I have and try to think of meals from that. It helps me to shop for groceries after I do that because I am not buying groceries for a whole new plan or more stuff. I usually only have to restock my staples and buy a few snacks that will help stretch the snacks I make at home. We’ve been loving Annie’s Homegrown snacks and Horizon Organic snacks lately.

I’m not a huge organic fanatic because things can be organic in they way they are grown and not necessarily free of chemicals, preservatives, and things I can’t pronounce. I do however buy organic produce for my daughter sometimes, depending on what it is; things like carrots that are high in nitrates or apples and broccoli. Since summer though I have been doing a bit of meat-less meals and using up summer vegetables to get our fill on Vitamins. We have tried some really good recipes lately that have involved spaghetti squash, eggplant and zucchini! I hope you are encouraged to try some of these recipes!

(Our lunch this week is egg salad, pizza muffins and apple sandwiches along with fruit, cheese, pretzel or muffin for snack)

As I mentioned above, we have started baby led weaning and are in month 2 of doing so. With baby led weaning she feeds herself without our help and receives finger sized pieces. We are pro baby led! My sweet pea enjoys frozen or fresh blueberries for breakfast with a scrambled egg (no seasoning), Apple meal muffins, assorted fruits like bananas and grapes, homemade toast, banana pancakes, blueberry cookies Coconut banana bread and I am experimenting with dairy free yogurt.

For lunch she eats a mini veggie muffin ( I used broccoli, carrot, and corn) and diced cheese or some kind of veggie with fruit pieces or cheerios. For dinner she eats a clean version (meaning with little or no seasoning) of what we are eating.

I hope you find something here that you can use on your own meal plan!

Welcome back guys! The warmer weather is here and spring is in our future. This time of year I’m pulling myself out of cabin fever and rushing to get outside to be welcomed by soft wind against my skin and peeping bulbs everywhere. I have to admit, I haven’t tried new recipe’s lately and the one’s I’ve indulged in haven’t quite made it to camera. Go ahead. Call me unreliable. Being stuck in the house with dreary weather has been so uninspiring. Rain rain go away. The addition of B12 deficiency anemia doesn’t help my case either. Well, enough with excuses. I’ll try not to be away so long this time. Some time a few weeks ago I tried this recipe. I used boneless pork chops and grilled them. You can hardly taste the cocoa and it adds a nice smokey flavor. I usually don’t try pork recipes very often because they can be overly flavorful, dry, or not flavorful enough. I pretty much stick to a basic lemon garlic baked dish. But oh man did we devour this! They were very juicy (without brine- but I did sit them in the fridge for 30 mins) and moist. I served this with buttered noodles and iceberg/strawberry salad. My hulk smash did complain that they were a bit spicy and I would agree the second day we had them but not too spicy, just a tiny kick. He’s 5 now and he slopped them up anyway. Try them please! I’m getting much better at indoor photography but I’m still working on the lighting situation. Here’s what’s coming up this week on our meal plan. Breakfast:Amish breakfast casserole (my way) Chocolate chip banana muffins and homemade strawberry yogurt Blueberry breakfast biscuits with sausage and honey Cereal (gasp) and leftover muffins Oatmeal and strawberries Dinner: Whole roasted chicken, broccoli casserole, sweet corn spoonbread with homemade muffin mix Zesty Italian Chicken bakeLinguine CasseroleAngel hair pasta Bbq burgers and dogs, with homemade cole slaw How do you like your pork chops?

We are down to our last days of packing to move so this weeks meal plan and next weeks will be about survival…isn’t it always? Oh yes, but I’m that mom. The one that needs to say it out loud to process it. Because I’m that mom that does the extra and will continue to do that when there needs to be a break. Being that mom is okay, we just have to recognize when a little is enough. I’m in therapy. I promise.

I’m also trying to defunk my house from two perspective sickies and one sick 2 month old. Sick kids are no fun. Sick babies are no fun..please guys wash your hands and stay away from babies! Seriously. No. Fun. Sickness happens but there are measures that help us help them stay healthy. Rant over. I digress.

I didn’t realize we have so much stuff. A craft room is definitely on my list of must haves for the next place. I’ve dedicated these next few weeks to slow. Since we will be settling in I need to find what slow looks like when it’s picked up and moved to another place. That is why slow is not mostly outward living but inward as well. Our hearts need to be set already at slow. Our work and lifestyles need to be motivated by rest in God. This way we aren’t finding rest but building a life of rest and working from that. Isn’t that amazing!??

I hope the weekend has been good to you!
I finally feel as though I can man-handle my circus ring…baby and all. Which leads me into meal planning. Our family and friends have taken care of all our meals post-baby up until now and I’m so super grateful. It has truly been a blessing to us and has allowed all of us, me especially, to relax and focus on bonding with baby. Who knew what a huge difference meal planning makes? It’s a hard job to figure out a tasteful, timeless, yet budget friendly meal to feed your family.

One thing that helps me is shopping big for my meat a few times a year when our local grocery store has their meat sales. This allows me to focus more budget wise on pantry items and save big when it comes to meat. Now I am focusing on making the most of my savings and using up what I have before it is time to shop again.

Happy Monday everyone! I hope your weekend was great. This weekend my hubby and I did some last minute Christmas shopping for our boys and finished some odds and ends for baby. It was an interesting weekend to say with contractions rising and no results. Hopefully we will get to hold our baby girl soon. I decided to dig a little deeper into my meal plans and give you more detail because I usually plan three meals a day for two-three weeks at a time. I suck with lunch though, it’s a struggle for me to be creative in this area because I can’t get out of sandwich mode but I digress. Lately I’ve been kicking it up to make sure we are eating a balanced meal daily. So that means making sure there are some fruits and veggies along side. I tend to follow a ratio of one fruit, one veggie, protein and dairy. Lot’s of times through the week we have leftover’s so if you see three or four things listed it’s not because I don’t feed my family, we just have more to go around at some point. I can’t cook everyday of my life you know. We also tend to eat out or find something quick on the weekends. Here is what is on my list for the coming week.

Lunch Grilled cheese with pepperoni, grapes Parmesan noodles and peas Apple salad and fish sticks DinnerParmesan honey pork, salad and garlic mashed potatoes Corn dog muffins/veggies Cheese steak sandwiches and chips Weeknight chicken stir fry I keep a meal plan journal where I can write down recipes that I want to try and the website, book or magazine to find it and also if we liked the recipe or not or my notes. This makes it easy and I have everything in one place. I also have a meal plan board, which I will share in a future post, that allows me to write down what’s happening for the week and my shopping list. I’m the crazy lady with a bunch of lists in her pocketbook. ha! I hope you find a recipe here that you can keep! We have a lot of catching up to do. Meet back here next Monday for coffee and tea? See ya then!

This post has been a little while coming. It’s been four years since I’ve cuddled and held a newborn. Some may say pish posh, I say ahhhhh!!!

Life just settled down and then I throw a baby in the mix!

Anyways, I wanted to share with you all how I plan to do life with a newborn. This post will cover what I am doing to get ready for….duh duh duh DUHH!! My sweet baby girl. There is not much I can prepare for. She will either throw me for a loop or wrap me around her princess band. Either way I’m here to stay.

Here’s the thing:

I may make my plans but the Lord determines the outcome.

(We may throw the dice, but the Lord determines how they fall. Proverbs 16:33)

So while I am super-duper planner girl, I know that my plans are tentative to the Lords…..Shall we?

There are two things that I marked as my goal during this pregnancy that are super important to me. One of those is freezer meals. Preparing meals ahead of time will help me and my hubby stay sane. I made a list of meals my hubby can choose from to make and recipe ideas for him when he is feeling creative. I also made a list of what is in the freezer so that he can see a list of inventory and we know what we are getting low on and need to restock.

My church usually sets up a meal train for the prego’s and I’m super grateful…but I know it will take me a while to get into the swing of things so I wanted to have a few things on hand after that. And quite frankly who wants to cook right away when they’ve had a baby?

I’ve known that I wanted to do this since I first got pregnant so I’ve been collecting meal ideas for my family since. I used to do freezer meals to send to my mom and I think I’ve tried all those bagged one pot crockpot meals. I can’t stand them. They usually sound so good but….sometimes the flavors don’t quite go right, at least for me they haven’t. We want real meal ideas that I’d cook on a regular basis, not something made up and slopped together in a crockpot.

In the beginning of November I set aside a day to get all my freezer meals done. My sister came up for the day as well and did some for her household too. We have all of this stocked with the exception of chicken spaghetti and roast beef sandwiches. I also froze apple pie filling, peaches, raspberries and strawberry, peach and blueberry applesauce. When it was all over my sister and I had a table full of great meals.

I’m almost out of granola…it is seriously delicious with my homemade yogurt and a few frozen berries sprinkled in. This picture does no justice for what my taste buds feel.